From out the haze of my first undergraduate degree, art history, I recall this story, an interview in the early 1980s with Philip Johnson about his mentor, Mies Van Der Rohe.

Johnson worked with Mies on the Seagram building (1958), he had a role in designing the plaza and the four seasons restaurant.

When asked what he remembers most of his mentor during that project, Johnson said, “his favorite phrase, ‘one more’.”

The report gently suggested to the older architect that perhaps he really meant, “less is more.” Johnson shrugged, “no, ‘one more’.” The dumbfounded reporter begged for clarification, and Johnston obliged.

Johnson attendance at the “three martini lunches” with the other architects on the project was obligatory, and a burden it was to him many times. As the project ramped up Mies would hit the sauce especially hard , and as he ordered his fourth, Johnson would gently admonish him that perhaps he had had enough. Mies, furious, would pound the table and bark, “one more!”